I’m reminded a bit of the Discworld Ankh-Morpork game, where the players can be pursuing entirely different (secret) win conditions that only partly intersect with each other (drawn from a set of cards containing 3 with “gain control of X territories”, and 1 each of “place at least one minion in X territories”, “put X territories into a state of conflict” “accumulate X amount of money” and “finish the deck of cards without any other player achieving their goal”)
But it’s still a single-winner game where you have to be alert against other players potentially reaching their goals so that you can block them.
I do now wonder how it would play if it allowed for multiple winners. You’d have to modify some of the values of X (they already vary according to how many people are playing), remove the “no-one else wins” goal card, and maybe change the size of the deck so that time pressure is the obstacle rather than opposing action. But it could be interesting.
Ahh, though not a peacewager/cohabitive, this sounds like it might be interesting to me, it sounds like these are the sort of goals that will pretty reliably tend to be exposed a while before the end of the game (like it’s going to be hard to miss that one player is a freak for money/expending cards), so the game isn’t really hidden goal, it’s more like it’s allowing goals to be hidden temporarily for spice?
Doesn’t it seem quite absurd that a game about ankh-morpork would end with a unipolar order (that the game would be single-winner)? I dunno. I guess the ankh-morpork vibe and character could probably survive any transition of power, the thieves’ guild will still exist and so on.
You usually do get a reasonable sense for what each player is pursuing by the end of the game, but it can be somewhat muddied by there being instrumental reasons to seek to control areas, make money, cycle your cards in search of better ones (etc) even when it’s not your win condition.
A devious player might take some overt actions to make you think they’re pursuing a different goal than the one they’ve actually got. Or at least keep you guessing. On occasion I’ve ended games with wrong beliefs about what the other players were aiming for.
I’m reminded a bit of the Discworld Ankh-Morpork game, where the players can be pursuing entirely different (secret) win conditions that only partly intersect with each other (drawn from a set of cards containing 3 with “gain control of X territories”, and 1 each of “place at least one minion in X territories”, “put X territories into a state of conflict” “accumulate X amount of money” and “finish the deck of cards without any other player achieving their goal”)
But it’s still a single-winner game where you have to be alert against other players potentially reaching their goals so that you can block them.
I do now wonder how it would play if it allowed for multiple winners. You’d have to modify some of the values of X (they already vary according to how many people are playing), remove the “no-one else wins” goal card, and maybe change the size of the deck so that time pressure is the obstacle rather than opposing action. But it could be interesting.
Ahh, though not a peacewager/cohabitive, this sounds like it might be interesting to me, it sounds like these are the sort of goals that will pretty reliably tend to be exposed a while before the end of the game (like it’s going to be hard to miss that one player is a freak for money/expending cards), so the game isn’t really hidden goal, it’s more like it’s allowing goals to be hidden temporarily for spice?
Doesn’t it seem quite absurd that a game about ankh-morpork would end with a unipolar order (that the game would be single-winner)? I dunno. I guess the ankh-morpork vibe and character could probably survive any transition of power, the thieves’ guild will still exist and so on.
You usually do get a reasonable sense for what each player is pursuing by the end of the game, but it can be somewhat muddied by there being instrumental reasons to seek to control areas, make money, cycle your cards in search of better ones (etc) even when it’s not your win condition.
A devious player might take some overt actions to make you think they’re pursuing a different goal than the one they’ve actually got. Or at least keep you guessing. On occasion I’ve ended games with wrong beliefs about what the other players were aiming for.